Moat
by silvertongue
Summary: A friend of Ephram comes to town. She's nice. She's sweet. Amy wonders- Why is she friends with him? Slight swearing. Possible A/E. Read and review.
1. Recognition

Chapter One

"Ephram! Phone!" 

Ephram sighed and rolled sideways off his bed. He carefully closed his comic book, and then threw it in a pile on his bedside table. _Kinda defeats the purpose of carefully closing it, doesn't it?_ He thought to himself, and sighed again.

"EPHRAM!" Dr. Brown, more commonly known as 'Dad' shouted up the hall.

"Got it!" Ephram walked over and picked up the extension 'Dad' had put in his room.

"Hello?"

"Moat?"

"Sam?" Ephram stood up straighter.

"Who else can call you Moat and get away with it?"

"The only reason you can is because I can't get you to stop." Despite his words, Ephram's voice was friendly, and he was smiling. In another second he'd make history and laugh. 

"Shut up. You know you love it."

"Is there a reason for this phone call, or do you just enjoy bugging me?"

"I can't have both?"

Now, Ephram did laugh. He knew perfectly well that Sam could have whatever she wanted.

"What's the reason?"

"Businesslike are we? I'm coming for your birthday."

"Sam. My birthday isn't for another era."

"Momi doesn't know that. What Momi doesn't know can't hurt her. Oh, and if she calls, you're recovering from your suicide attempt quite nicely."

Ephram tossed the world out of orbit. In other words, he laughed. Hard. The third time in 5 minutes. Unthinkable.

"What was it? Pills? Razor blades? No, it can't be razor blades because if I come across her she'll check for scars. Pills, then?"

"Yep. Children's Motrin."

"I'm a sad, sad dude."

"That's what I'm sayin'."

"Do you need anything else? Besides to let me know that you're coming?"

"Duh."

"And?"

"DIRECTIONS!"

In twenty years you'll be able to tell your children you witnessed a miracle. Ephram Brown sat down against the wall and laughed good and hard for a solid 20 seconds. I wish I'd been there.

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Amy Abbot was walking down the hallway. 

Her head was tilted. Her hair swung in back of her, occasionally annoying her by falling into her eyes.

Her head was full of thoughts, like it usually was. Thoughts of love, and misery. God, and fate. Destiny, and soul mates. And that algebra test next period. 

"Amy!"

Amy swung around and looked for her caller. _Oh. CallerS,_ she thought to herself as she saw the group of girls that had supposedly chorused her name.

"Hey." Amy put on her best smile. She added a hair flip. Killer.

"We've been calling you for centuries. You should get your ears checked." A new girl, a brunette, said. Her voice was smiling, and her eyes were happy to go along. 

"Sorry. I was thinking. You know how I get when I'm thinking." Amy smiles again.

"Good thing that doesn't happen very often!" The brunette girl jokes.

__

You're bold, aren't you? Amy thought, eyeing the offender. 

"Amy, are you all right?" The girl looks at her.

"Yeah, Aim, are you okay? You're staring at Mel." 

__

Oh my God. Amy thought with shock, as recognition came to her at last. The brunette was indeed new. New in sixth grade, that is. 

"I'm just a little……." Her voice falters as she suddenly see movement in the corner of her eye.

"Who's that?" Mel moved closer to the window.

"I dunno."

The girls fell silent as Amy watched Ephram wrap his arms around a redhead. She watched silently as the redhead wrapped her arms around him in return.

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Ephram walked towards the school. He wasn't thinking about much. That was unusual. Ephram was always thinking. He wasn't usually thinking the right things, but he was thinking none-the-less. 

Now he was just being.

"MOAT!"

Ephram swung around in time to see a battered black jeep pull into the tiny school parking lot.

Now he was thinking. He thought about all the times he'd been with Sam. He thought of all those years in under a second. Then he vaulted over the small wall that was his only obstacle and walked quickly towards the jeep. 

"Sam!" He grinned and grabbed the red head as she neared him.

"Geez, Moat. Sure know how to make a girl feel welcome!" she said as she put her arms around his neck.

"Happy Birthday, Ephram."

Ephram gave her one last squeeze and pulled away.

"I've got to puppy train you not to call me that." 

"But it so fits you!" Sam laughed. She knew he loved it.

"Ephram! Hey!"

The two friends turned quickly. 

Sam looked the tall blonde girl over, and gave her a healthy smile.

"Hello!" She chirped. 

"Hi." The girl squirmed ever so subtly. 

"Hey Amy," Ephram said a little too loudly, "'Sup?"

Amy shook her head and smiled. She was used to Ephram's ceaseless jokes. Even if she didn't get them.

"Nothing. Do you have notes for Algebra?" Amy's gaze flickered over Sam.

"Hi! I'm Sam, as Moat could have told you if he had manners. I gather you're Amy?"

"Yeah. Moat?"

Ephram cleared his throat.

"Nevermind her. She's the devil. Back to Algebra…. On second thought, no Algebra, I don't have notes."

Amy laughed.

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Amy looked at Sam.

She looked normal. Friendly, even.

How strange.


	2. Poor Little Bitch Girl

A/N: otownroxx: I love your site, and I would be very honored if you featured my story! J 

Thanx to all who have been reviewing!

Chapter 2

"So…." 

"So….."

"Eeenie meenie moe?" Sam raised her eyebrows and looked across her slice of pizza at her two eating companions.

Ephram smiled. _He looks so pretty when he smiles, _she thought as she smiled back at him, _Or handsome. Whatever you prefer…._

She giggled aloud, earning her seven raised eyebrows and a smirk. That one scary looking dude at the counter only raised one. She giggled again, and tried her best to raise only one eyebrow. 

"Sam, what the hell are you doing?" Ephram laughed at her as she put down her pizza and raised her eyebrow with her hand.

"I'm trying to raise one eyebrow, what's it look like I'm doing?"

"I thought you could only do that when someone does or says something really stupid…" Amy-I-think-that's-her-name Abbot said skeptically.

"Well, then, in that case!" Sam turned around and stuck her tongue out at the man. 

The man crossed his eyes at her.

"Moat! He's making fun of me! Make him stop!" It's amazing. Even when mothers complain that their children sound like babies, none of them have ever sounded like Sam did now. If I had a pacifier I would throw it at her.

"Shut up, Sam. You deserve it!"

"Could somebody PLEASE tell me what this 'Moat' thing's about? It's gonna bug me all day!" Amy said, sounding more than a little irritated.

"I want the truth!" Sam cried.

"YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!!!!!" Ephram stage-bellowed back. 

"You know what? I think I'm going home now." Amy placed her money on the table and grabbed her jacket. Big baby.

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__

Why doesn't she just jump on his lap? Amy thought bitterly as she grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair.

"Amy, you sure you have to go? It's only 4!" 

That was Ephram. _Or should I say 'Moat?'_

Amy was getting sick of this girl. She drives into this town, looking like one of Amy's girlfriends, with her stylish clothes and pretty red hair, and falls all over one of Amy's close friends.

Amy had no idea when Ephram was promoted to 'close friend' status. He just was. 

"Yes. Dad'll have a fit." Amy lied. She'd always been good at lying. She didn't LIKE to lie, heaven forbid, she just had the TALENT for it. She often wondered why she should have talent for something that she so rarely did, and wouldn't help her in an future career she was planning on. 

Now she knew why.

It was to get her out of moments like these. 

Amy didn't know why she was so bothered by that girl. She was perfectly nice. 

AMY didn't know why she didn't like Sam.

AMY didn't know why the 'Moat' thing boggled her so much.

But then again, Amy doesn't know anything, does she?

**************************************************************************************************

As he watched Amy walk from the cheap restaurant, Ephram felt torn. Like the cells of one side of his heart were tugging one way, the others another.

"You okay, Moat? You look like you're having a stroke." Ephram jerked his head from the door and looked at his old friend.

"Could you kill it with the Moat thing when she's around? She's just gonna keep asking what it means."

"And is that so bad?" Sam looked at him, hard.

"To me? No. To you? Yes." 

And Ephram was entirely right. Sam didn't have many things in this world that were just hers. Moat was hers. Ephram belonged to Amy, to Delia, to Dr. Brown, to his mother, to all of his friends. Moat belonged to her. 

Sam smiled, uneasily. Unlike Amy, Sam wasn't born a liar. She couldn't lie very well at all. In fact, it had taken her years to work up the meager skills she had. Unlike Amy, Sam HAD things she had to lie about. She had things she needed to keep hidden. So when Sam looked into Amy's eyes and saw how well SHE lied, and how much she disliked it, she thought to herself- _Poor little rich girl._

Ephram, of course, was oblivious to Amy's deceit, Sam's possessiveness, Sam's struggles. He was even oblivious to his own oblivious state. Which can only be expect of one who is as oblivious as he was at that moment.

***********************************************************************************************

Amy walked through the Evercrowded streets of Everwood. She smiled. _I made a joke_, she thought.

The icy wind combed through her hair as her mind was busy churning. She wished they had just answered the questions she'd asked. Then she would have been able to eliminate some of the awful possibilities that were racing through her head.

How exactly did they know each other? How did they meet? Why was she here? Were they 'together' together? **Are** they 'together' together? Were they at this very moment taking heed of her silent shoutings of 'GET A ROOM' and found a ditch somewhere?

Why did she care?


	3. Highway

A/N: Sorry it's taken me so long to update……. I haven't really been in a writing mood.

I know, I know. That's no excuse to the poor, blue people who have been holding their breath for me to update (HEY BLUE PEOPLE!), but it's the best I've got.

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Chapter 3

Sam stared into the mirror. She opened her eyes wide, batted her lashes, and tried on a super-model pout.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who's the fairest one of all?" She asked in a sexy (or so she thought: it really sounded like laryngitis), deep-throated voice.

Sam laughed. She was having a good time. Ephram had been a little distant once that Amy chick left, but he quickly grew out of that.

She studied her features. Small, delicate nose, freckled like a robin's egg. Bright red hair that often earned her the nickname Alanna the Lioness. Green eyes. She had a pale complexion, much like her precious Moat's. Kind of tall. Big hips, not much chest. She liked it that way. She always felt sorry for the girls that got hit in the face when they were running in PE. 

Talk about uncomfortable.

She quickly compared herself to the Poor Little Bitch Girl, Amy Abbott.

__

Amy's too serious, Sam thought, _She could use a few highlights. Maybe a piercing. Yeah, a nose piercing would look baby-grand on her._

She laughed again.

She knew Amy would never let her near her. She hadn't spent much time with her, but it was apparent enough that the blonde didn't take kindly to her. She sighed. It was too bad. 

Sam would have enjoyed helping Amy to loosen up.

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Amy stared into a mirror. Her hand flitted up and tucked a few imaginary strands of hair behind her ear, and then once more. Her eyes grazed her reflection, taking in every square inch. Her long blonde hair, the hair that had taken her forever to grow, was streaked with brown and evenly disposited on both of her shoulders.

Her eyes were nothing special. Tallish. There was nothing remarkable about her figure, except that she was a bit too tall and bony to have a ballerina's build. 

She sighed, and turned from her mirror to concentrate on the pile of stray papers on her bed. 

She picked up a pencil and stared blankly at the cold sheet of paper in front of her. 

It was no use.

Her brain wasn't working.

It just kept gong back to the redhead. It was like her brain was a computer program, and it was looping. Why, what, who, when, how, how, how, how, how…………………..

She saw in her mind's eye the pretty redhead. Sam.

And like the oblivious, idiotic, moronic, and every other word that ends in -ic that she was, she wondered again why she didn't like her. 

She reminded me then of what the first caveman must have looked like, before speech, but not sound.

Sitting on a hard rock, eyes and mouth equally wide, going, "DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

**********************************************************************************************

Ephram was staring in the mirror. He fingered the now-nearly-healed hole in his nose, the one where he used to wear a silver stud.

He turned away from the mirror, kind of smiling. Smiling an ironic smile. _Next thing you know, I'll be reciting Snow White,_ he thought.

He walked into the living room and saw the piano that was seated at the wall.

__

Why not? he thought, _I need a little peace…_

So he sat down at the piano, closed his eyes, and played a Mozart piece he had learned by heart.

It was beautiful. It always was. 

He didn't listen, though. His ears were a highway for the music. He could almost feel the music notes flying through them as his entire world became one of music and sound.

He didn't listen.

No one listened.

No one…. But Sam.

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	4. Breaking and Entering

A/N: Sori it always takes me so long to update. I never have either the time or the spirit to. Thanks to all of you who review! I wish there were more of you! Heh heh, I made a rhyme………..

Chapter 4

Sam stood against the wall of the Browns' new home. She listened to the music that no one but her was hearing. Her fingers raced up and down a keyboard that wasn't there, in time to the beautiful music. She had to get inside without disrupting that beautiful, heavenly music. She just had to.

The door was locked. But the windows weren't. 

The House of Brown was no match for the Girl of Sam. She popped open a window and gracefully, with the air of someone who was no stranger to breaking and entering, slid herself silently in. 

She walked into the living room, where Ephram sat alone, oblivious in an ocean of notes. She sat next to him on the piano bench. She sat there. And listened. She watched her friend's face as he fell deeper and deeper in to the music. How the world slipped away from him until all he was…. was music.

She didn't know how long the piece went on, how long they sat together in that trance-like state, only that it wasn't enough. 

"Sam? What are you doing her, Sam?" Epham's voice shook her to reality, and she realized that the music had stopped. 

"I- I-- I heard your music, Moat…" she mumbled, barely coherent.

"Do you want to play?" He asked, gesturing towards his piano.

Sam silently placed her fingers on the board, and watched as he put his in their appropriate place. They played a modern punk song. Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous. 

It might have sounded fake and cheesy on other people's pianos.

Not on theirs. 

Moat and Sam were a team. The Dynamic Duo. The Dream Team. 

They worked magic while they were together. 

They could do anything.

They thought they could do anything.

They knew they could do anything.

Leaving the beautiful narrator out of clever things to say.

*********************************************************

Amy walked slowly towards the Brown house. She wanted to give Ephram a music book she had found. She thought it would help him with the ballet class.

Right. That's why she's walking a mile in the freezing rain in the dark.

To give him a music book. 

May I repeat, RIIIIIGHT.

As she neared the house of Ephram, she heard the strangest music. 

It was perfect. She wouldn't have thought the piano could play punk songs so well, but we all know how much HER thoughts are valued.

Like cheese in a cheese store. 

She ran the final steps and knocked on the door. The music stopped abruptly.

Sam opened the door, as if in a daze.

When she saw Amy, she smiled weakly.

Ephram joined the red head at the door and looked at Amy.

"Hi, Amy." Ephram said creatively.

"Hi, Ephram." Amy said brilliantly.

"Hi, Amy." Sam added, cleverly. 


	5. The Function of Blinking

A/N: I know, I know….. I am getting tired of all the hate mail that's coming my way for not updating my lovli story….. And you! Yeah you! The one who sent me itching powder! So not funny……..

Chapter 5

Amy recovered. 

She didn't recover quickly. 

Or gracefully.

Or even very well.

But she recovered.

"What-what-what are you doing here?" she stu-stu-stuttered.

"What am I doing here? Living. Cuz I live here." Ephram said, looking from one girl to the next.

"Not you! Her!" Amy pointed wildly at Sam, who still looked as if someone had woken her up from a deep sleep with a bucket of ice water. Which isn't such as bad idea, now that I think about it….

"Her. She has a name, Amy. And what are _you_ doing here? We've established what I'm doing here. Sam's here cuz she wants to be here. What are _you_ doing here?" Ephram was starting to get a teeny tiny bit defensive, if you ask me. But nobody ever does, do they? 

"I'm here to give you this stupid music book! But obviously you don't need one. So I'm going to go and leave you to your _playing_!" Amy threw the soggy book down on the steps and spun around, spattering Sam and Ephram with water. 

"Amy! Wait!" 

*************************************

Sam had no idea what she was doing. She rarely does. But this time she had even less of an idea what she was doing.

Amy turned around again to face the girl.

"What?" she spat. "Why can't I leave? You _obviously _want to be _alone_ together, and I'm just-"

"Shut the fuck up, Amy."

"What?" Amy blinked rapidly, many times. What exactly does blinking *do*? Amy is living proof that it doesn't help you say witty intelligent things….. Some things are just unfathomable….

Sam straightened her shoulders and sighed. 

"Amy, shut the fuck up. I don't want to hurt your feelings, or injure your pride, but some things need to be said. Moat and I? Not together. You and Moat? Not together. So you have no right whatsoever to go jealous-girlfriend on me. None. Uhn-uhn. Numero whatever-the Spanish-word-for-zero. So shut up. Moat and me were playing piano. Perhaps you heard us? Come in. Right now."

Amy was baffled. And whiffled. 

She wordlessly slipped past Ephram into his house. Sam followed. Ephram remained.

Alone.

Staring out into the rain.

Horribly, horribly, HORRIBLY confused.

But then, as I've said before, what's new? 


	6. The Unheard Silencer

A/N: I know it's been ages…… It's just so frustrating when no one REVIEWS!!!!!! Shout out to all my BEAUTIFUL AMAZING REVIEWERS! 

****

Chapter 6

Both of them. In his house. At the same time. 

May I say; sucks to be him….

"Do I get the pleasure of being consulted on who's in my own home?" Ephram asked, frustrated.

"Lemme think….," Sam paused for a second, her pinky at her mouth like Dr. Evil, "That would be no."

Amy stood off to the side, looking at the piano.

"How do you guys know each other?" she asked suddenly, then added, "I know you were friends in New York and everything, but how did you meet?" She shifted her weight from foot to foot.

"Well, Moat and me, we're pianists, right? We met at recitals. We'd seen each other a lot, since, y'know, we're the same age and all. We had a lot of recitals together over the years. We just kinda hooked up. Us'n Avi. She, him, and me were the only people there worth talking to. If you ask me, of course."

Now, this was _quite_ a speech for Sam! 

Her heavily made-up eyes looked down at the floor. Apparently she's fascinated by carpet. Hell, to each her own, I guess.

"Avi?"

"Yeah. It's her nickname. Since, Sami here's the only one who calls me Moat, Av calls me Epi. Her cousin, Evi, and her are real close. Called us the I's. Creative, I know."

If Ephram's, AKA Moat, AKA Epi, random burst of information startled anyone, they made no sign. 

Ephram sighed. He went and sat at the piano. Sam joined him. 

And eventually…….

So did Amy.

*******************************************

She didn't know what she was doing. 

She's as unmusical as they come. Why was she sitting at the piano? It was obviously something *EPI* and *SAMI* shared. 

__

Why did my name have to be so unnickname friendly? There's no point in being Ami. I'm Amy already, thought-- guess who-- Amy.

Ephram placed his fingers on the piano, next to Sam's. He hit a few notes, at random, then picked out Happy Birthday. 

Amy laughed. 

Ephram, encouraged, jazzed it up a notch.

Sam added her fingers to the mix, playing a descant part at her part of the keys.

Amy sang. What else was there for her to do? I mean, it's not like she can bang a tambourine on her head in time to the song. Though it might knock some sense into her….

__

Hap-py Birth-day

To----- (Guess who?) You!

Hap-py Birth-day

To---- (Guess who?) You!

Hap-py Birth-day 

To----- (Guess who?) You-hoo-hoo-hooo!!!

Happy Birthday!

Toooooooooooooooooo

You-ooooooooooooo!

Sam had joined in with Amy, adding the Guess who?'s and helping with the Hoo's and Ooo's.

It was just her style.

Ephram was finally getting comfortable with these two girlies in his homie. 

He was starting to relax.

So he didn't hear when someone opened his kitchen window, once more. 

He didn't hear as someone silently slid into his "homie."

He didn't hear the footsteps, or the clink of the silencer that someone fastened to a gun…..

He didn't hear.


End file.
